Booti Booti, Kangaroo Pies, Biblical Floods, and more!

Hello from (stormy) Byron Bay!

We’re about 600 km north of Sydney along the East Coast of Australia.  We’ve had a great week driving up the coast since our last blog posting.  What have we been up to?

NEW YEARS EVE IN SYDNEY

*Watching the Husky defense stuff Nebraska at an Irish pub (A few days later, we watched the end of the Seahawks victory from the comfy confines of Forester Lawn Bowling Club and Casino)

*Discovering that about 60% of the Australian Museum is dedicated to deadly animals and insects

*Suffering through fleas in the bed of our Sydney hostel (unfortunately, every room in the city seemed to be booked on New Year’s Eve) 

*Making new friends (Kylie and Claudio), who let us crash their picnic overlooking the Harbour Bridge New Years fireworks

*Definitely not making new friends while cramming onto buses after the fireworks (Sydney at 2am on Jan 1 felt like a zombie movie – so many drunk people, including an obese naked Russian man in our hostel lobby drinking vodka alone at dawn)

ROAD TRIP

*Driving on the wrong side of the road hasn’t been too bad.  Much of Australia is 2-lane highways with beautiful scenery, so tough luck for the locals stuck behind us as we take our time to soak our surroundings

*There are tons of national parks with great names (in the course of 2 days, we drove through Booti Booti, Wyrrabalong, and Bongil Bongil)

*Listening to the Aussie version of KEXP for most of our drive

ANIMALS!

*We enjoyed “patting” koalas at the Billabong wildlife center.  We also got to feed kangaroos (cute!), avoid cassowaries (hybrid of emu-vulture-devil), laugh at dingos (they’re just dogs! Why the worry about baby-eating?), and coo at baby koalas clinging to their momma

*Despite the numerous kangaroo yield signs on the Pacific Coast Highway, the only roos we’ve seen in the wild were roadkill (also had the pleasure of seeing 2 large snakes on the road)

CAMPING

*We’ve been camping three times now.  The campgrounds are huge, yet they’re still packed.  We’re enjoying our camping experiences more as our spider/snake paranoia decreases

BUSH WALKING

*We really enjoyed the Blue Mountains (“blue” because the Eucalyptus forests give off an oil that creates a blue haze), as well as the cute town of Katoomba (great lamb burger at the Blue M Cafe!)

*We loved our long hike (yes, Jack and Mary, it was a real hike!) through primordial rainforests in Dorrigo National Park (same flora and fauna from Gondwana 50 million years ago) 

*We’ve also done some walks along the coast through national parks, up to lighthouses, and a failed search for the elusive nudist beaches in Sea Acres rainforest

EATING

*With so many beautiful (and weird) spots to check out, we’re pretty content to get most of our food at groceries stores and have impromptu picnics for our meals.  Of course, we’ve had to try some local favorites along the way (usually sloppy pot pies – I much preferred the peas n gravy over kangaroo pie)

DRINKING

*The wineries of Hunter Valley!  The region makes excellent Semillion and Shiraz (so I’m told), and is home to many friendly winemakers willing to top our glasses off more than we needed.  Side observation: even in classy places, locals wear short shorts and beer-related tank tops

*We also got lost in Port Macquerie’s industrial district, and ended up at Little Brewing Company’s beer tasting – look out for Wicked Elf Pilsner in a store near you soon!

We’re currently in Australia’s surfer/arts capital, Byron Bay.  We’re just south of the “biblical floods” that are ruining Queensland, though it has been pouring down here as well.  We’ll spend the next few days driving through the hinterlands, and (if the rain slows down) looking for some more of the pristine beaches we saw in the south.  Instead of driving up the entire East Coast, we are going to dump our car in Brisbane, fly over the floods, and spend more time in tropical NE Australia. 

Cheers!